Up Up, The Blog

may take-away

2012-05-31T21:41:00.001-04:00

it's may 31st, month's end, and i'm frustrated tonight. this month was totally great for my business: sales were (very!) high, customers were awesome, feedback was excellent. i got two new printers (bringing my tally to five), hired a virtual assistant, and made a lot of great business connections at NSS. i spent a lot of the month feeling really great about things.

but holy hell i worked my ass off. when i wasn't busy, i was beyond busy. there were days this week i was actually sweating, not from the heat but from my own frenzied work pace. i got no exercise this week. or last. didn't even have time to walk to my therapist's office like i usually do for my appointment. i was late picking up the kids twice this week and worked each night here at home until ten.

we have had an empty fridge since monday (it currently contains: week-old olives, soy milk, a baggie of leftover bacon, bread machine yeast, a smattering of condiments, a mostly-full tub of hummus, a few slices of american cheese, one 6oz. container of vanilla yogurt, V8 juice for the kids (the kind with fruit and veggies, not just the regular kind), diet coke, a few random beers, two kinds of jelly, and a bag of wrinkled sweet peppers. oh, and half a lemon i already zested. two weeks ago). neither brian nor i has had the chance to shop.

i'm torn between enthusiasm for the growth of the business and the sure sense that at this pace, i'm going to keel over.

i've been telling myself - and anyone who asks, actually - that i feel like i just need a few more months of this and then i'll be in the position to hire someone to help. my burden will be lifted.

which is where the fact that it's may 31st comes in.

i ran may's numbers and while the plus column is good, the minus column isn't. it's expected in the early months of a new business, of course. when i started this endeavor i calculated that it would be 9 months before i'd be breaking even, and i'm only 3.5 months in. trouble is, ignoring the usual kinds of "starting a new business" expenses, like buying new printers and such, operating expenses are (understandably) high. the question is, can i up my sales volume enough to allow for an employee when i'm already working at my own capacity? how can i increase my through-put capacity without working any harder, or longer? how can i make more money appear in the plus column without adding stuff to the minus column, or working through the night seven nights a week?

i've had offers of help, and the offers have been awesome. people have been so kind and willing. but i'm sitting here trying to plan for long-term viability, and free help isn't going to get me there. if the business model isn't working, it needs to fail on its own, not succeed with the help of kind free-working souls. otherwise, i can't figure out how best to strengthen it so that it can stand on its own, paying the people who make it work.

so i guess the take-away from may is this: things are good, very good, even, but not as good as my sanity needs them to be. i'm very happy to be able to keep putting money back into the business - to buy equipment and such - but i need to be able to do more than that.

bring it on, june.

nss, a year later

2012-05-23T20:47:00.000-04:00

i got back yesterday from NSS, which officially ended today. as i said on my facebook page, attending was in many ways very like those scenes in tv shows when characters are being brainwashed: intense visual stimulation, unending interaction, a constant thrumming pulse. i had a new idea with each passing minute. i scribbled notes and put reminders in my phone. i met all kinds of awesome and wonderful people.

then last night i conked out right in the middle of an episode of lost where one of my least favorite characters was about to not die again. that is how tired i was. but i digress.

being that i was walking the show this year after having debuted there last year as an exhibitor, pretty much everyone i spoke to wanted to know two things: was i happy to be walking instead of exhibiting (an enthusiastic yes! qualified by a bit of wistfulness brought on by just how awesome everysinglebooth there was), and did i think exhibiting last year was worth it.

strangely, up until even a few weeks ago i wouldn't have known how to answer the latter question. i would have said something about how i simultaneously learned a lot and felt a lot of resentment about going last year, and how i'm glad i didn't feel obligated to go again this year.

but when someone asked me this question on sunday i was surprised to say that even though it took an entire year to realize it, exhibiting last year was completely worth it. even financially, in the long run.

i think somewhere here on the blog i once figured out that during the 2011 show, i made in sales about 20% of what i had spent on exhibiting, which, as first-time attendance goes, is supposedly decent. unfortunately, i never did make much more than that as a result of the show.

but the certain kind of righteous i was about that financial fiasco (i know the spiel about how you can't look at it that way and it's not about recuperating all of your investment immediately, etc., but to me that seems like, um, crap) led directly to my crazy september experiment which in turn led directly to the sudden realization that i reallyreallyreally needed to start a fine-art short-run print shop.

and here i am a year later with 200% growth for 2012 ytd versus the same time period last year. and all of that only happened because i went to nss. i only had the knowledge to do it, and the confidence, and the contacts, because i'd been serious enough about my business to exhibit. i only heard the things i heard from buyers about my fantastic print quality because i exhibited. i only realized who my ideal customer was because i exhibited. my growth and the new direction things've taken are completely a result of doing nss last year.

and it only took me twelve months to figure that out.

friday: be there or be square

2012-05-01T12:54:00.000-04:00

Come see the new studio, meet me, and catch a glimpse of Up Up Creative's newest work. You'll also have an opportunity to purchase graphic art by indie designers from around the country, all printed by Aper + Pink.

How to find us:

250 N. Goodman St., First Floor | Rochester, NY 14607

The building is next to Village Gate - entrance is on Anderson Ave.

Up Up Creative is in a shared space with Booksmart Studio and Pistachio Press,

both of which have signs outside.

RSVP ON OUR FACEBOOK EVENTS PAGE HERE OR JUST STOP BY AND SAY HI!

business or pleasure

2012-04-30T11:11:00.002-04:00

i've been getting serious here so much lately i thought it was time to just share some pretty stuff. this little beauty -- one of my favorite designs ever ever ever -- is now available at minted. (remember, you can save 10% off any of my designs at minted using the code SHOPNV5FV6.)

enjoy!

i am right here

2012-04-15T11:01:00.000-04:00

this weekend, i admitted some scary things.

except no. i didn't really. i admitted some very reasonable and understandable and normal things, but admitting them was scary.

it was scary because of what i feared it would make people think about me. and it was scary because of how it made me feel about myself.

i admitted that sometimes, especially when i'm having a hard time personally, like when i'm anxious, i feel like i:

shouldn't be a mom
don't know how to be a mom
don't enjoy being a mom
can't take care of my kids
can't even take care of myself
wasn't meant to be a mom

and my rational mind knows that this is stuff ALL MOMS FEEL. but my irrational brain feels like i am the worst possible person in the world, i am selfish, i am going to ruin my children and my marriage, i am broken, i am crazy, i will never feel better.

but of course none of this is true, at least not as long as i keep talking about it and keep rational about it. we moms, we LOVE our children, but we don't always love being with them, and why would we? they need us constantly. and even when they don't have physical needs, they have wants. they need us to feed them and clothe them, but they also need us to talk with them, play with them, nurture them, listen to them say the same things over and over and over. and we do it because we love them.

and it's so scary to say that we don't always like it because we don't want our kids to know. or we don't want our spouses to know. we don't want anyone to think we're unnatural or scary or a risk to ourselves or others.

as i sobbed and sobbed over the phone finally admitting to a surprised listener yesterday that i often don't like the day-to-day caregiving of being a mom, the person on the line asked me if i feel like my children have stolen my life from me. at first i thought, "yes, maybe that's it." but that's not quite how it is. rather, i feel like i have willingly given my life to them the way we all give ourselves to our kids. i just haven't known how to keep myself healthy and okay in the meantime.

i work at least 40 hours a week, but my kids are only in daycare 17 hours a week. often, especially lately, i take my kids to the studio with me, sitting them on the floor with a laptop and a movie and plying them with snacks, paper and pens, cardboard boxes, lunch. they are good when they're there and they look forward to it, but obviously it's hard. from water spills i have to clean up to the jelly footprints all over my floor from someone who stepped in her bagel and then walked all over the studio, it's hard. they need me and i need them. i need to take care of them. i need to look at the pictures they draw while they're sitting on my studio floor. i need to take them to see the dogs my studio mates keep. i like the idea of having them there with me, having them know their mom as a person in the world, having them see my work and be creative with me.

but the reality is that it's hard.

duh, right?

the trouble i have is that for as self-aware as i seem, i can be really clueless when it comes to my own mental health. it wasn't until i started back up with therapy recently to deal with my anxiety and panic attacks and a specific phobia i have that i realized that underneath it all, i'm really depressed. i'm a mess. i work and i take care of the kids and i do almost nothing else, least of all take care of me. i shower every other day, and only because my hair looks too awful if i go longer than that. i don't take walks anymore, even though taking walks is like breathing for me. i don't exercise. i don't hang out with my own friends (because i don't really have any of my own friends, honestly). i never just sit and veg. i don't read anymore. i often work until ten, watch one episode of a show with brian, and then play iPhone games until i fall asleep with the phone in my hand.

and the clueless part isn't just that i didn't realize how depressed and unhealthy i am. the clueless part is that i honestly 100% thought that my work was my break. i thought it was the thing i do for myself to stay centered and peaceful and mentally healthy. i thought it was the solitude i crave to feel whole and sane.

i thought that because four years ago when this all started, right around the time evan turned one and i had a complete breakdown and had to leave home for 11 days and put evan in full time day care for the next 8 months (until we moved home to rochester and i was home with him 100% of the time again), up up creative was my therapy. making things each day and putting them into the world was the only thing that got me through the long days with evan out of the house. i read books, wrote incessantly in a journal, walked around the OSU campus at will, and mostly i made things. quilts. necklaces. all manner of things. i felt normal and connected and grounded and slowly, i felt happy. or happier, maybe. i felt like a human being again.

and in the years that have followed i've grown up up creative (and now aper + pink) into a serious business. a growing, bustling, busy business. and it continues to be such an important part of my life and of my sense of self. i love working. i love building the business. i need it.

but the "make a few things and put them in an etsy shop" beginnings of four years ago are a far cry from what things are like now, and somehow i failed to notice how much more time, energy, and work that business requires now.

and there's a second kid now, of course, too.

and here i am again, totally lost. i have given everything -- happily, often, and almost always willingly -- until i've come up dry and aching from the drought.

and then on top of all of that i've tormented myself about feeling this way. i've tried to ignore it. i've told myself how easy my life is, how much harder it can be. how much harder it is for other people.

my sister in law told me a couple of months ago about a friend of hers who started working full time after her kids were born and stopped after they had both gone off to first grade and were in school all day. she just knew she couldn't mother them all day long. my exact words were, "good for her. you have to know yourself." i one million percent believe that. i think that woman is amazing and that her kids are lucky.

but somehow when i even think of the same thing for us here, i cry. i feel like i have failed.

i wanted to stay home with my kids. i want to. but i can't. i don't know why but i just can't. and that feels so bad. it feels like acid in my veins. i don't know how to take care of them and still take care of me. i thought i was doing it but i was wrong.

but you know what? fuck it, that's what. fuck this idea of mine that there was one way to do it and i've done it wrong. fuck the idea that each decision i make is a permanent decision and that it will have permanent consequences. fuck being scared that my kids won't know how much i love them. you can't be around me and not know how much i love those two little red heads. how much i admire them. how proud i am of them.

it's hard because i know that right now, i need extra time. it's like i've been giving myself a penny each day instead of a dollar and so now i need to give myself a buck fifty each day for awhile until i'm on evener ground. i think i went into this thinking, "maybe i could give myself two pennies a day and eventually i'll make it all up." but that's ridiculous. that's not working.

today i let brian take the kids for a hike without me. i considered going because i didn't want to reinforce my depression and anxiety by avoiding an outing with them. it was a very logical reason to go. i didn't want to avoid them. i didn't want to stay at home and cry or sulk or be anxious.

but instead i let them go and decided that staying home didn't have to be about avoiding them but could be about looking for me.

so here i am.

prints in progress

2012-04-07T12:57:00.000-04:00

lots of orders sitting ready for trimming and/or packaging. the studio is busy busy these days.

not a cry for help, a cry for change

2012-03-28T13:01:00.000-04:00

life here at la maison green continues to be stressful. circumstances continue to suck, sometimes just a little, sometimes more than that, and sometimes a hell of a fucking lot. there have been big stresses and littler ones. some that have swept in quick and fierce and some that have simmered, simmered, simmered.

back on my medication for anxiety, i find i am less apt to have panic attacks now than i was a month ago, which is good. but now i'm finding warnings creeping into other parts of my life: i wake with tension headaches, for one; my left knee hurts, which makes my left calf muscle hurt, which in compensating for has made my left hip hurt, and that in turn has left me with a weird pain in my left foot. it's totally and completely ridiculous.

it's affecting brian, too. he gave himself a concussion a few weeks ago (silly, freakish accident involving a cupboard door and a two year old under foot, but still, it seems to be both a cause of the stress at our house and a symptom of it). and now he's the only 30-something i've ever heard diagnosed with shingles (the adult resurgence of chicken pox, which usually doesn't strike until you are in your 50s or 60s, if then).

our bodies are telling us that our life is too much for us right now. they are screaming at us to figure something out.

and yet we're able to look around and find people all around us who are in worse circumstances than we are in. we're surrounded by people struggling against greater foes than we are, facing less sleep, fighting stronger viruses and ailments.

i see these people, and i talk to these friends, and i give myself an "it could be worse" and a "life is hard" and i remind myself that for millennia people have known these things. life is suffering. isn't this literally buddhism's first noble truth?

i say this over and over to myself. life is hard. it's supposed to be hard. who told you it was going to be easy? your life isn't even that hard. it could be worse. after all, my kids are healthy. my marriage is good. no one in the family currently has cancer. we have a house and two cars that run. we have so many blessings we probably can't count them all. so i repeat the chorus to myself: life is supposed to be hard. it could be worse.

the trouble is, my very core just can't accept this. life may be hard, and yes it can certainly be worse than this, but to me, when circumstances get this bad and the stress mounts this high and our bodies yell out to us that things just ain't right, to me this is when you need to step back, reassess, and change something. accommodate the suffering, maybe. find a way to care less about it, perhaps. or maybe just give the suffering more room to breathe -- take away the things that compound the suffering. make life easier.

because i'm very open about my anxiety and depression, i find that people often come to me about it. i get a lot of emails, even some phone calls. this shit is widespread, my friends. many many of us experience it, sometimes acutely, sometimes indefinitely. and as you know i'm the first one to admit (and advocate for the fact) that sometimes, you just need help in the form of medications. but i also completely believe that these times of discomfort, pain, fear, anxiety, sadness -- these are our bodies' ways of saying CHANGE THINGS THE FUCK UP OR ELSE.

i'm in a place now where i'm just not sure what form the change needs to take. it's so much more complicated to change a family's life than to change a single person's. but my kids are still happy and seemingly unaffected yet by the chaos their parents find themselves embroiled in, and i want to keep it that way. i want to get us back out of the fire so that we can get back to not suffering all the time even when circumstances are bad.

up up creative / aper + pink studio: BEFORE

2012-03-13T10:46:00.000-04:00

you know you've been busy when it's march and you're just getting around to even looking at the before and after pictures you took of the studio you moved into around new year's day.

i still need a day or two to go through the after pictures and set up a real, honest studio tour, but i'll tease you mercilessly with the before shots.

yes, the whole room was brown. dark, hershey's bar brown. and there were two layers of brown carpeting covering what we hoped was a cement floor (but which turned out to be an old asbestos tile floor). those racks and things filling the room were eventually removed -- they belong to my landlord.

(slightly blurry photos courtesy of my old iphone. wish i'd had the new one.)

but but but

2012-03-11T10:31:00.003-04:00

i'm doing much better these days. thanks for your kind words and your patience these last few weeks.

i'm back with just a small update on life/business, just a dipping of the toe into the blogging waters. i'm sure i'll be swimming laps again in no time.

but here's the thing: i wanted to tell you how well the aper + pink launch went, and how well things continue to go on that front. i've got a small stack of print orders sitting here on my desk and have sent out a good number of orders already in the last few weeks, and the feedback has been awesome.

i mean, i knew it would be. the whole reason i even conceived of aper + pink was because i knew that what i was producing in-house was better than the stuff i had seen anywhere. but it's been so reassuring, and so gratifying, to hear the great feedback from customers.

i'm sitting here almost a month into things wondering, now, what my next step should be. do i let things grow organically? do i reach out to new audiences and potentially open the floodgates? i have so many ideas and the desire to be bold and grow, but there are always so many buts.

surely i've shown in the past that i'm not one to let the buts stop me. but still. scary.

attacks

2012-02-26T13:08:00.000-05:00

when i wrote last weekend about how work hasn't been helping me through my anxiety lately, i think i may have suggested somehow that my anxiety is itself work-related.

it is definitely not.

it's the result of a series of very personal crises that all occurred in the span of approximately a week.

i never used to have these sometimes weeks-long debilitating anxiety attacks. before i had kids i would get the occasional short-lived irrational panic surge that might course through my veins for maybe 15 minutes tops.

now i get anxiety that inhabits me and lives inside here for weeks. this is my third bout with this in less than four years, and the fact that it keeps happening both scares me and pisses me off.

the frustrating thing about it is that it really does come in these little explosions, all at once and with no warning. an event will trigger the initial anxiety attack and suddenly my entire body will be flooded with stress that feels like poison. slowly over days i lose the ability to eat, and then to sleep. i can't be around my kids. i become unable to function. twice now i've even had to go on sedatives to help me get through the toughest part.

but when the attack finally wanes, i'm fine. fine-fine-fine. fine for a while.

some women hate their thighs, or their hips, or their stomachs. some hate the backs of their arms or their profiles in a photograph.

this anxiety is the thing i hate about myself. i hate that it's in me. i hate that i can't control it. i hate that it makes things so difficult for my husband and my kids and all the relatives and babysitters who help us out. i hate that i have to be medicated for it. i hate that it's probably hereditary. i hate that it makes me feel weak. that it makes me avoid stress. i hate that it makes me uncomfortable with my family. i hate that when i'm in the middle of it i feel like i will never-never-ever get out of it. i hate that even if it's not caused by my children, they're a part of it. i hate that it makes me avoid them.

what if this continues to happen to me three times every four years? what if it starts to happen more often? what if one time the anxiety does settle in and never leaves?

these are the things my frenzied brain wonders, of course. my calmer self knows that the previous bouts have ended and so will this one. it knows that each time this has happened i've learned something about my anxiety from it.

but still: it's scary.

not work

2012-02-18T13:46:00.000-05:00

i have had a truly rotten, awful week. the kind of awful that you can compare to other kinds of awful and it still seems bad. the kind of awful you can't ignore. the kind that feels like it's causing instantaneous ulcers.

it has me alternately weeping on my husband's shoulder, bawling in the car, and staring into the middle distance dazedly.

i'm having trouble making myself eat, which is a weird thing that happens to me when too much of this kind of fight-or-flight stress courses through me.

and usually, my work is something that helps me get through those times. like knitting and watching crime shows, working is usually something that kind of backburner's the anxiety so that i can feel normal for a bit.

this week, though, work's not working. it's not helping. i don't want to do it.

i want to curl up in a snuggle with my little boy. i want to read harry potter (it's my first time through - we've just started the first book). i want to watch felicity on netflix. i want to be quiet. i want to listen to music. i want to sit next to my husband without talking. in fact i want him around more or less constantly.

i want to shut my computer and leave it shut, unless maybe i need to open it to turn on the next episode of felicity. i get to the studio and don't want to be here.

and i'm not sure what to think about this. i'm not sure what it means, if anything, that all i want to do right now is not work.

obviously it's not a choice to put work aside. i've got orders to fill, clients waiting on me, emails piling up higher than a young boy's falsetto. i have orders to print (that's what brought me in to the studio today, when what i really wanted to do was curl up with my head on my hubby's lap on my in-laws' couch and watch the DIY channel, hearing my kids playing nearby but without them disturbing me).

i've built this thing, this business, to need me and my frequent attention, but i haven't yet figured out how to negotiate the times when i don't want its incessant calls to action.

have you?

aper + pink is here

2012-02-14T14:03:00.000-05:00

i officially took the aper + pink website from localhost to a live web server on sunday.

i only told brian.

sunday night, we went through it and i made sure everything had transferred OK and all, and just basically did a few tidying up kinds of things.

my plan was to send an email on monday night to the folks who had helped me develop the business idea and flesh out its details over the last two months, then to announce the official launch here today (tuesday).

before i had even sent my pre-launch email, i had two orders for sample kits.

by this morning, about ten hours after i sent that pre-launch email, i got an email saying that my order-form account was full and i would need to upgrade.

already?! in less than 48 hours live, and only ten hours after i had even told anyone about the site being up, i had exceeded my one-month allotment of form submissions.

point taken, my friends. you've been waiting eagerly. and i'm so so glad.

so without further ado, i give you: http://aperandpink.com

there you'll find pricing, set-up guidelines, file templates, FAQs, etc. you'll also find an online order form. i know that at various points in the development of this site -- and this business! -- i promised a full-on e-commerce site. i discussed all of that here and here so i won't bore you with it again.

in the end, i came up with a simple but sort of elegant solution that should streamline the process for customers and for me. it should make things run smoothly, which is all i really want for aper + pink.

the printing is fancy; the behind-the-scenes needs to be utilitarian.

so now go, check it out and let me know what you think. oh, and one more last thing. ha! i was lucky enough to get the shop listed on jessica hische's print-shop directory website inkerlinker. i'd love it if you'd go visit my listing and click on "like" or whatever. that would be pretty cool.

thanks, all, for helping me build this and providing so much feedback along the way. i'm excited.

getting close

2012-02-08T12:40:00.001-05:00

i'm getting close. i've got my paper and envelopes. i've priced everything, even sample kits. i've just (finally) finished creating all of the (many, many, many!) file submission templates. i'm still down one printer (did i mention that? COME ON UNIVERSE! seriously?!), but i've just finished testing software i need to make my "prepress" life easier.

and the website is coming along pretty nicely, although i've just noticed that it's pictureless, which is weird. i've figured out a decent order-processing solution that meets somewhere in the middle of "order via email" and "order via a full-service e-commerce website" - a solution that allows for easy ordering and, absolutely most importantly, easy linked-to-the-order file upload.

i'd really just like to open shop right now, but i've still got a few things to get ready. wonder if i can get it done for a valentine's day launch?

i will be closed the last week of february (i know, weird timing) so i really do need to push things along or else i won't be launching until march.

whaddaya think? next week? can we do it?

confluence

2012-02-02T21:43:00.001-05:00

oh, i'm brooding tonight, wondering why on earth i insist on doing things in the most difficult way possible.

it's hard to exactly explain, though it's easy to point to what put me here. today brought a series of small events, the confluence of which have given me much to think about. the five events were:

getting my snapfish and minted 1099s
finishing the irritating job of calculating the dollar-value of my inventory for 2011 year-end (which will be used to calculate COGS (cost of goods sold) on my income taxes)
getting an email reminding me that my sales tax will be due soon
one of my printers dying
being notified by my new landlord, who also rungs a digital print shop, though with a different customer base but also a lot more years' experience, is about to sublet even more of his own space as a cost-cutting measure. he's downsizing his employee base and renting out probably half of his space. he's got dozens of printers, many of which sit unused.

i'll do my best to explain.

so.

the work i do for minted and snapfish, which my 1099s attest is rewarded financially, requires nothing but couple thousand fonts, a computer, and some design software. it does not require me to file sales tax, do inventory, calculate COGS, buy, repair, and replace printers, or stock paper and envelopes. it doesn't even require me to go out and find customers, or to keep customers happy.

there's always the chance that one of those (major) companies will go bust, or that my work will no longer appeal to their customers, etc. but damn! DAMN! i spend less than 10% of my time on this work. i should just multiple that by ten and i'd be ALL SET. so little overhead. so little payout. why am i not doing that???

the answer, i guess, is that there's something that happens to me when i see other people running successful creative businesses, abuzz with activity, bursting with energy, busy with employees. i want that. i want to make that happen and to stand in the middle of it.

i got an email from the CEO of minted this past december in which she recounted the busy holiday seasons of minted's first years in business -- the year that they realized they were about to hit through-put capacity and had to immediately pull any advertising they could possibly still pull, for one. the year they had to call in their husbands, friends, and family members in order to get everything out the doors.

it sounded like completely wonderful chaos. and i do NOT like chaos.

but its hard to see lots of businesses around me in S-O-S. kodak, for one. my landlord, who maybe isn't in S-O-S exactly but who is definitely in pare-down mode.

now more than at any other time, even more now than when i shelled out all those big bucks to exhibit at nss let year, i'm standing at the edge of a chasm and i'm about to jump, and while i feel confident that i'll make it to the other side of this particular span, i've got to admit that i can't see what's lurking on the other side.

and with things like COGS and sales tax and dead printers that are more expensive to repair than to replace, i guess it's only natural to take a moment before jumping. and with 1099s showing me the alluring options on this side of the chasm, i suppose i'd be crazy not to be muddled tonight. brooding.

it would be wisest of me to stand here on this side. not only wisest, but possibly healthiest (from a wellness standpoint) and also best (from a mom standpoint). these are things i really believe, not just things i'm supposed to say. i really truly believe that if i could just find a way to stay happy here on this side, i'd be better off. healthier. happier.

but i can't shake the allure of spanning the chasm.

i can't stop wanting to be one of the few who takes the leap.

so i guess we all know i'll probably jump.

demystifying daycare, a plea

2012-01-26T22:08:00.000-05:00

i had some helpers with me this week since the babysitter was sick (only emily is pictured here, but evan helped too) and it made me remember that i have a question that i'd like to ask everyone. everyone anywhere. i would like about 1000 comments on this post because i'm interested in ALL of the options.

in the box, out of the box, near the box. this is an invitation for brainstorming.

my kids are in an awesome in-home daycare. but for a list of reasons that is important but not really right for delving into here on the blog, things are going to have to change with the daycare situation and because this change will more or less coincide with evan heading off to kindergarten in the fall, I NEED TO KNOW WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT.

how do you make half-day kindergarten + a younger sibling not yet old enough for pre-school (emily misses the cut-off by days and won't be able to go to preschool until she's a teenager, or so it seems) + a growing self-owned business that requires regular if not 100% full-time daycare?

i mean, on the one hand a nanny seems like the way to go, so evan can come home after school and i can be at work and emily can be taken care of all the while.

but we've tried the nanny situation before and maybe it's just us or something but nannies get sick a lot and then i get mad because inevitably they get sick when brian has court or some such trivial thing and so i have to be the one to ditch work and figure out how to still get the stuff done and have fun with the kids and not resent anyone or anything.

plus i like the idea of them being around other kids because again, maybe it's just me but i find that running a business and being home part time with the kids is not the recipe for tons of playdates. i think we probably end up with like fifteen playdates a year.

but i'm not even sure i have a grasp on what our other options are. here's my list. please add to it in the comments and feel free to (please do!) share your thoughts on making it all work.

OPTIONS:

a school-like daycare where the kids are separated into classrooms by age or whatever. this would separate emily and evan.
another in-home daycare, but i think this would need to be near home because of the aforementioned kindergarten thing, right? in other words, it would be best located in our school district or else i'd be leaving work in the middle of the day to chauffeur evan, right?
a nanny.
a shared nanny, like shared with another family or something, so that there could be more kids hanging out and being friends? maybe this is something i invented in my own wishful head.
latchkey for evan and something separate for emily. to the very best of my recollection i literally did not know kids with two working parents as an elementary school child, and so to me latchkey was this foreign place in the gym and the cafeteria where the weird kids went (i'm just being honest about my 8 year old prejudices here, folks) and maybe there they did weird things or maybe weird things were done to them? but maybe it's different now? or maybe it was always different? discuss.
something different altogether?

daycare mystifies me, my friends. clearly i need your help.

the things i wish i could outsource

2012-01-24T21:42:00.000-05:00

there was a time, right after evan was born and lasting, i dunno, a year or more, that i wrote here every day. it went like this: get up, feed the baby, eventually eat something and get dressed and brush my teeth, do the day, whatever the day was to be that day, do dinner for the baby, eat with brian, kid bed, BLOG. and then after blog, or sometimes before, or during, FLICKR.

it was just part of the day.

now i feel like my days are so overrun with everything else the blog is reserved for whenever-i-can-find-the-damned-time. (and flickr? i'm not sure i've used it once since i uploaded the pictures from NSS last may).

and no, whenever-i-can-find-the-damned-time does not include now.

but i've been working so hard on bringing you (and the world!) aper + pink that i forgot to tell you along the way what it's like bringing a new business into the world when it's, like, a planned-in-advance business.

up up creative happened and grew and became. it was an unplanned but very much wanted pregnancy and it has grown to be a very pleasant child.

aper + pink was 100% planned, and while the execution (gestation?) has been purposefully condensed into a short, short period of time, it has at times felt like this overwhelming beast. not the business idea, but everything that goes into making a business idea happen at a certain time and on purpose.

there has been ordering, or i suppose i would be telling a truer truth if i were to say there has been 90% order planning (and unplanning, and replanning, and second-guessing, and third-guessing, and then back to the second guess, no maybe the first) and 10% actual ordering.

there has been physical organization and orientation.

there has been a lot of really awesome pre-launch marketing -- getting out there and talking to the people who i want to be my customers -- which has also served as pre-launch survey-taking and focus group polling.

but holy hell there's so much thinking that goes into this, and i don't mean the angsty "what on earth am i doing with my business" kind of thinking that i've gone through at regular intervals with up up creative. this thinking is more like, "okay. i have a plan. in my mind it is as clear as day. how do i get it across to other people in a way that makes it as crystal clear and fantastic?"

i'm a decent communicator. a decent teacher. i can usually take a large pile of information and carefully, skillfully, condense it into its finest, most digestible self. but taking the fine, digestible idea and building all the necessary scaffolding to hold it up to the sun?

i've tried three separate times now, or i guess four, to outsource the design and development of the website for aper + pink. i've also developed three almost-complete e-commerce websites. and each time i've changed course, or made the plea to others for help with the coding work, or the design, i've not seen that the real issue is this: i'm having trouble wrapping my head around all the content, and instead of sitting down with that i've been trying to throw Function and Pretty at it.

oh that i could pay someone to climb inside my head and grab all the bits and bobbles related to aper + pink and then put them through some kind of strainer and turn them into the actual stuff of the business.

which is to say: i'm going to have to take the next few days to climb inside my head and gather bits and bobbles and spend the time it will take to actually mold them into the business. i was really hoping i could avoid that part by hiring out the website work.

i guess i may do it all myself after all, since the very hardest part is on me.

damn damn damn.

on limits and e-commerce

2012-01-15T21:29:00.000-05:00

i've spent a good portion of all available free time over the last three weeks -- which admittedly, with the holidays and moving into the new studio and all, hasn't been much free time -- working on the e-commerce site for the new print shop.

any of you who has spent any time setting up, comparing, designing, or implementing an e-commerce site feels my pain, i'm sure.

and all that pain has been tripled as i've simultaneously developed three different carts at the same time, pitting each against the others in a battle of design accessibility, pure e-commerce power, technical support, customer service, and ease of use.

i've run the up up creative e-comm site on, i realized recently, four different e-commerce platforms over the span of not-quite-two-years and i've extensively tested an additional three platforms.

each has its strengths and weaknesses. each drew me in for one reason and drove me away for another.

just a few days ago i got a very kind email from someone who had been visiting my up up creative e-comm website for inspiration as she looks to build her own stationery biz site in the coming months. she cited mine as being very user friendly, i think. i get weekly emails asking who designed it. so i like to think that it's a decent site.

but i'm here to tell you: i often consider nixing the e-commerce functionality on that site.

i'm sitting here on a sunday night wondering why i'm spending so much time developing an e-commerce presence for aper and pink (the new print shop, for any uninitiated folks out there in readerland).

there are a few reasons why, but chief among them are these:

1 - the custom design and print-shop work i do is complicated. people have questions. they have special requests, want special sizes, want to combine and uncombine and recombine things. they think their project is different, somehow, than what they're seeing on the page in front of them, and often they're right: it is different. having a functional e-commerce site tends, in my experience, to make people see limitations as brick walls. if only five sizes are listed for sale on an e-commerce website, it's easy to assume that those are the only five sizes available.

2 - i do not see myself in the goods business as much as i see myself in the service business. sure, my customers and clients walk away with tangible (and sometimes intangible) goods, but the value that they get from coming to me rather than going to someone else is that i provide a service. i make their lives easier, or i accomplish something they didn't think could be accomplished. i think e-commerce sites work very well for goods-based businesses but do not apply quite so neatly to businesses like mine when part of the lure is that you can get something made just for you.

3 - i am equally ignited in my work by two things: the things i create and the people i create them for. i like working with and speaking to those people at least somewhat directly (if digitally over email, much of the time). e-commerce sites, when they work properly, they make it so that the buyer and the seller needn't interact. this is the thing that's perhaps got me the most hung up. i don't like not interacting.

4 - i do pretty alright, sales-wise. my business continues to grow. but here's a little secret: the percentage of my income that comes from sales through upupcreative.com is, well, insignificant would be too harsh a word, but it's close. most of my sales come from emails, phone calls, or convos on etsy. they come from someone asking me a question and me answering it. and i kind of think that's the way it should be.

of course i insist on doing much of my shopping online. i don't like pushy sales people. i don't even like pushy sales emails. i am turned off by sales, discounts, and promotions. i know what i like, what i want, and what i need and i don't need anybody trying to convince me of anything. but if i'm looking to buy something complicated, or special, or whatever, i prefer for there to be a person on the other end of things.

and on the other hand…

nothing makes me crazier than a lame website. i like knowing enough to be able to create kick-ass websites for my businesses that do what they need to do and do it well. i've (gasp!) enjoyed working through the development of these three side-by-side comparison demos of the new aperandpink.com shop because it's rewarding making the technology bend to my will and do it prettily.

i just wonder if it's worth my time when it may actually work at cross purposes to my businesses' objectives. sure, e-commerce sites may save me time processing orders and sending and chasing after invoices, but they do not help me build, for example, a safe haven for graphic designers who want high-quality, kick-ass print services they can't get elsewhere. they don't help me convince my wedding and print customers that the sky's the limit. instead, they suggest quite the opposite: that there's a very specific set of parameters defining what's possible.

i realize it's crazy, but i'm considering heading off in a new direction with my websites. i'm considering turning away from e-commerce and towards gallery- and info-based sites. it's very 2004, i know. give potential customers as much as i can in terms of inspiration and information (pricing, ideas, etc.) but then let them come to me when it comes time to order, which is what many of them do now anyway.

what do you think?

julie's first day out

2012-01-04T11:14:00.000-05:00

four strange and unusual things i did this morning:

i showered. i showered even though i showered yesterday. i did this because crap! i am going to see actual people today! every-other-day showering is for people who work at home, damnit!
i packed a lunch. kinda. i'm way out of practice on this and really more like threw some food into some containers and put it all in a wegman's bag and who knows if there's enough food or too much or what.
i stopped at starbucks because i've got a gift card and i stood in line and i did this weird internal dance to the tune of "i'm a commuter commuting to my studio that is not in my house and i'm standing in line at starbucks with other people who are commuting to places of employment that are not in their houses."
i packed my laptop into an ill-fitting laptop bag because, oh, did i mention, i'm not going to be at my house today, and being not-at-my-house will not work so effectively without my laptop.

and also, two things i would normally be doing today that i kind of forgot i won't be able to do today from not-at-my-house and hmm, this is going to take some getting used to:

laundry. i have at least three full loads to do and usually i'd sort of throw one in here and there throughout my at-home workday. need a new plan. your advice is welcome.
make pizza dough. also not going to be possible from the studio. which means that dinner tonight? i'm going to have to figure something out. more advice welcome.

this is going to be weird. good-weird, but weird.

kick-ass short-run fine-art printing heading your way

2011-12-06T20:43:00.001-05:00

richard branson, i learned today, started his airline because when he was in the music biz he hated flying on other people's airlines and he thought to himself, "i can do it better." and then he did it.

yes, i'm comparing myself to richard branson, because we're totally analogous. in this one case.

so, here's the basic deal...

as you probably very well know by now if you're a reader of thishereblog, i've been running a design studio / print shop / online retail establishment for more than three years now, and every six months or so I go through the old "should I or shouldn't I outsource" debate.

to date, other than my wrapping paper which i had offset printed here in rochester, i've kept all printing in-house, but not for lack of trying (at times) to outsource.

at one point quite recently, after the 33 weddings that came of the september experiment, i decided something needed to give. so i went out into the "street" and asked every short-run-type graphic designer i could think of (and read every related post on every related forum) and i came up with a list of seven or eight printers to try.

cut to mad spree of account setting up and sample ordering.

then cut to me getting the samples and being un.happy.

then cut to me being frustrated and wondering why there isn't someone out there who will print my orders on MY printers with MY inks and cut them on manual cutters in small batches, paying close attention to things like making sure things are centered and even and that, you know, crop marks aren't showing (one of the top-recommended print shops actually sent me my order with crop marks visible on almost 20% of the order they were cut that irregularly) and generally doing things the way i insist on doing them. (as i've said before, like it or not, i care deeply about quality and paper and the art of printing.)

cut to me waking up on a sunday morning with an epiphany: i am in a perfect position to be the printer i am always looking for. i've made the contacts, i've got bulk accounts with major paper distributors who ship to me straight from the mill at a crazy discount if i order thousands of dollars' worth at a time and can do it on their production schedule. i've got equipment and lots of practice being a perfectionist about printing.

and so. so so so.

i will be opening a short-run print shop. actually, it will be a

fine-art

short-run

indie-powered

designer-loving

eco-friendly

in-house

kick-ass

anything-but-basic

print shop equipped with everything you need to wow your clients and amaze your friends.

i'll be featuring vibrant, water-resistant pigment inks and all the best cotton, recycled, and bamboo paper you can imagine. oh, and want something a bit more exotic? how about sugar cane? kenaf? or perhaps some self-adhesive kraft paper? done.

the thing is, for most people, printing is the un-fun part. it's the tedious, error-ridden part. it's the part that brings swear words to their lips and tears to their eyes. it incites arguments between otherwise happily engaged couples just trying to keep invitations personal, practical, and affordable.

but I love it. i love learning the tricks and figuring out how to avoid the troubles. i like discovering new methods and new substrates.

i mean, i read blogs about printing. i really do.

the official launch will be in february 2012 at aperandpink.com but in the meantime, i'm always still print-print-printing along. i'm bringing on new customers now and hope to continue doing so as february approaches.

and now you finally know what i've been scheming. yay!

on the importance of disappointment

2011-12-02T11:05:00.001-05:00

i realize this may be a little bit too much info for some of my readers, but i promise i won't dwell on it long.

emily was conceived on our first try. we had kind of talked about another baby a little bit here and there and then one saturday afternoon, on a hike with evan, we decided that it would be OK to start trying to have another baby, figuring that it might take a little while and that by the time the baby would be born, evan would be 3 or so.

cut to me, two weeks later, peeing on a stick and running sneakily out to the kitchen to brian to show him and ask, "could this even be possible?" and possible it apparently was.

hormonal teenagers take note: it can happen on the first try.

we were excited, of course of course, but i also remember thinking that there's a very good thing about having to try for a few months before a baby is conceived: the disappointment of not being pregnant a few times solidifies in your minds that you really really want to have a baby. when the baby just appears in your belly without any prior disappointments, it can be jarring. even confusing.

which is why on monday of this week, i started looking for studio space despite all of the unsureness i was feeling on sunday. i decided that the only way to know for sure how i felt about it was to look and to either fall in love with the idea or not fall in love with it. i decided that i would look and force myself to suffer the possible euphoria and disappointment that would come and that would help me know whether to go for it or not.

the first space i fell in love with was smaller than my attic. the price was ohsoright, but smaller? that's a no go. and there it was: real, true disappointment.

the second space i considered was far too expensive and while it was close to the kids' babysitter's house, it was surrounded by accounting firms and medical offices. and yet: even more disappointment.

by the end of the week it was abundantly clear: whatever i feel about going full-time (still not ready) and hiring an employee (ditto), i am completely ready to take the next step and move this gig out of the attic -- where i bump my head on the ceiling each time i stand at my paper cutter -- and out into the world.

the place i settled on is ridiculously perfect even in its imperfection. it's a room of its own, with ceilings that i couldn't even hit my head on if i drank fizzy lifting drink, settled snugly into a corner of the space shared by booksmart studio, pistachio press, and a small cadre of other artists. i feel like it should be called "both-and studio" because it's both separate and connected, both private and shared, both mine and not mine, both still-just-me and not-still-just-me.

i move in january.

the first business trimester

2011-11-27T17:09:00.001-05:00

it's four now, and i'm just sitting down to work, which on a sunday is pretty much unheard of. usually i toil my sundays away since i have no childcare on monday and only part of a day on tuesday. sundays are important days, work wise.

instead of working i spent 20 minutes on the elliptical and 5 hours sweeping and mopping my house from top to bottom. (note to self: if you are going to spend five hours sweeping and mopping, 20 minutes on the elliptical is kinda irrelevant.)

my work break has much less to do with needing to clean -- let's face it, i clean so seldom that there's basically always a need to do it -- and much more to do with needing to do some business thinking.

it's the same reason i've been absent here on the blog these last 19 days.

i'm thinking. planning. assessing. polling. synthesizing. crunching. fantasizing. gut-checking.

business is slow this month -- because i made it that way. i've taken off random saturdays to sit and stare at my husband, or my in-laws, spent sundays sliding furniture around in order to uncover bunny-sized dust bunnies. i've gone evenings (not many, mind you, maybe even just one) completely computer-free. i've taken long lunch breaks and walks around the block.

sales are way down, of course, but thanks to work i did all year for minted and snapfish, i'm reaping the rewards of the holiday season without much effort at all on my part.

i have my reasons for creating this slow, slow november.

i am at a point in the growth of my business and my family life where i need to figure out what the next few years are going to look like.

brian would like to have a bit more of me on the weekends and has suggested a few times that it might be time to think about a more full-time daycare situation for the kids. and i've also had a business epiphany that pushes the issue further.

i have a really excellent business plan and i've crunched the numbers and done some market research and floated the idea by friends and colleagues and it's excitingly possible. doable. but to do it right, and it's the kind of thing that really has to be done right, it will require three things:

a significant investment - of somewhere around $10-16K - that it will take between 9 and 12 months to recuperate, which I realize isn't bad at all from a business investment standpoint.
a dedicated space (i.e. commercial or industrial studio space), which adds to the investment tally and extends the time until break-even.
an employee. which, yeah, adds to the investment tally and, right again, extends the time until break-even quite a bit more. this part of the equation also adds the potential for a lot more stress.

i'm not totally good with stress. my tissues seem to be stress sponges, sucking up all the cortisol and adrenaline and other yuckiness and turning them into raw, pulsating panic that strikes when least expected, sometimes even waking me from a dead sleep.

i am surprisingly okay with issue number one, the investment, but the second two are too big for me to take lightly. they're major. crazy major. to make those two things (a studio, an employee) work with my life, i'd definitely have to up the week-day daycare and in order to compensate, work less on the weekends. i'd be signing myself up for a full-time day job working for myself and being someone's boss.

let me tell you, it doesn't feel great knowing that i have this viable business idea that has the potential to really be wildly successful and that all i need to do to make it happen is commit to it fullheartedly and step up and take the reins and yet i'm sitting here writing a long thinky blog post about it.

it also doesn't feel great knowing that my hesitation is a very female hesitation. something tells me that a man in my position would already have been down to the SBA talking about loans, would have scoped out studio space, would have talked to the woman at daycare about extending the kids' hours, and would be spreading the word about the impending new hire. that i'm not doing those things makes me feel a bit wimpy.

brian is already telling people - you know, family members and such - about my new business plan, which makes me cringe a little bit. or not cringe. wince. like it hurts to talk about it. and hurt i guess it does, because i know he's right that i could easily be racing forward into the wild blue future.

but there are things i just can't ignore. i can't ignore the fact that i'm a total introvert who isn't exactly jumping up and down at the thought of working day-in and day-out with the same human being, having to communicate each day with that person. having to advise, guide, teach, correct, and listen to carefully enough to make the business - and the working relationship - work.

and i can't ignore the fact that emily is only two and i still want a little bit more time with her. she's at that age where we are starting to be buddies, and i really do not like the idea that i got to share the early buddy years with evan but might choose not to spend them with emily. it's a decidedly motherly thing to worry about, that i won't know my daughter as well as i will know my son, but it's there and its un-ignorable.

so here i sit, feeling so much like a mother in her first trimester who is nervous and excited and bewildered, who doesn't want to tell anyone about the baby yet - just in case. here i sit with a kick-ass plan for a really kick-ass business, one that would be both a new direction for me and a really logical extension of everything i've been doing since november 2, 2008 when all of this started.

if i don't move forward with the plan, i know i'll mourn the loss. i don't know that i can go as far as to compare it to a miscarriage or an abortion, since i've never experienced those, but there will definitely be pain and mourning and the sense that something amazing didn't happen. but while that sounds to some like a reason in and of itself to move forward -- take the plunge in order to avoid the mourning, the pain, the loss, the regret -- to me it's not so clear. avoiding that sense of loss isn't enough to make me ignore the fact that i'm not sure i want the life that bringing this new business to fruition would bestow upon me. the life for me, and for my family.

it's all so damned complicated.

there are some things that i am pretty sure of.

i like working. i wouldn't trade in my job for staying home full time in a million years. i LOVE my kids and i LOVE that we have mondays all to ourselves to just do kid-and-mom-type things. out and about in the old things and here at home things. but i do actually hope to even out my life a bit more over the next few years so that i can do more of my work during "normal" work hours and less at night and on weekends.
i like that my job is flexible.
if anything, over the years i've wished it would be even a little bit easier for me to take breaks, deal with illnesses, etc.

beyond those things, i think i need to do some more house-cleaning, by which i mean soul-searching. i hope you'll indulge my silence about the specifics of the business while i do so.

and um, yeah, please do stop by my shop, as well as minted and/or snapfish, if you're so inclined this month. you'll be contributing directly to my ability to take the time to figure shit out.

please and thank you good night.

today

2011-11-08T08:33:00.000-05:00

printing.
planning.
psyched.

oh yeah, thanks

2011-11-06T15:19:00.000-05:00

i just wanted to pop by again quickly today to say thanks to everyone who has been reading the blog lately, and everyone who has been emailing with me about things i've been writing about, and just generally all the folks who have spoken with me in real life or otherwise about the direction my business is taking.

this morning a plan presented itself to me pretty much fully formed and i'm so psyched about how the details are so crystal clear to me. nothing has ever felt this easy before. so easy and new and different while being the most logical extension of everything i've been doing for the last three years.

more soon. for now: thanks.

more going

2011-11-06T13:38:00.003-05:00

the goal: for all of my in-stock greeting cards to be out of stock. yup, friends, if you didn't know it already, i'm not going to be selling the greeting cards come january first.

the plan: keep reducing the prices until they're all gone. in october all cards were on sale at 25% off and several styles sold out in prompt fashion. on november first, the discount went up to 50% (meaning each card is only $2!!) and it will remain there until november 30th (or whenever everything's gone). if anything is still left then on december 1st they will go down to 75% off.

so without further ado, here are eight more styles that you may not know about, but should. happy shopping, friends.

love & subliminal messages

getting older, in pink

happy this, that, and the other thing (holiday card)

damn you (birthday card), in orange

crazy love iii (peanut butter)

oy-o card (hello, just because)

best/worst dichotomy card

upright thanks

now enjoy!

on the question of what my ART is

2011-11-05T12:01:00.001-04:00

even though i suggested yesterday that there are two halves to the nss story, there are more. more factors that go into deciding how i want to move up up creative forward in 2012 and beyond.

one of the factors is a strange one, and it's one that i'm going to have to deal with before i deal with any of the others.

i said all that stuff i said yesterday about my ideal customers, but there's a way in which perhaps those folks i so badly want to be my customers aren't completely ideal after all. there are things i care quite deeply about that the customers i profiled yesterday don't care as much about. or don't care about at all. or don't value or prioritize financially even if they do possibly care.

and part of the weirdness in the equation is that these are not things i used to care about. they are not things i cared about even a few years ago. and they're things that i even feel a little bit hypocritical caring about.

i really really care about the quality of the final product. i know i "only" print on a pro photo printer, something that, yes, any schmoe with enough money, a USB cable, and the ability to hit cmd-P can do. but i've spent years learning all about the inks and papers that combine to create the very best, most vibrant output. i've cultivated business relationships and have so grown my print volume that i can now order my paper at significant discounts. and i've learned tricks.

at nss last may i was situated near a company that prints on the same paper i print on, using a comparable (and in fact more expensive and slightly more advanced model) printer and i noticed that their output, while vibrant and dense, was pixelated - and even quite rough in places - around the edges of elements. and immediately i knew exactly why, and it's such an easy thing to correct, but it took me three years to figure out.

after my september experiment, when i was staring down the barrel of a significant number of orders and two printers to print them on, i realized i would never be able to keep up that volume, even though my goal for future volume is actually significantly higher than what came in throughout september.

and so despite all i've said about in-sourcing and wanting to control the output and the quality and wanting to have my hands on things, i started looking into outsourcing at least some of my printing.

i did crazy amounts of research and found the top five or so recommendations for the kind of work i'm looking to have done and i started requesting samples. i got paper sample books, printed sample books, and i also ordered small opening orders with three shops that had the best paper options for me using my own designs, just so i could compare them with my own output here in the studio.

the first order to arrive came in wrong. the back was printed in the wrong orientation and so arrived misaligned, turned 90 degrees, and cut off on one side. also, the color intensity was weak and there was that pesky rough-edge pixel problem. i requested that the problem be corrected and a week later i got the corrected order. a week! for ten prints that were supposedly expedited. the back was correct this time, but the print quality was the same.

the next order to arrive was actually so ugly i actually gasped when i saw it. it arrived extremely promptly, i'll give them that, but ohmygod i was shocked at what i received. the paper, supposedly a premium matte-finish paper, was shiny. not glossy, mind you. not luster. just kind of shiny. like sort of matte-shiny. it's hard to explain but it's awful. and the trimming isn't square or consistent, and on 5 of the 25 prints, part of the crop marks appear on the top corner. for real. and the whole stack is significantly curled. and oh. the pixelly problem again.

if only i could get my hands on those printers myself, i'm positive i could produce significantly better output. and the trimming? come on.

and the thing is, this quality is acceptable to a lot of people. i got lots of recommendations from graphic designers and photographers i know and trust. these places are the best in the biz.

i did find one place that prints with the same ink and papers i use here in-house: giclee printing on heavy duty fine-art 100% cotton paper. the cost there is $9 for a 5x7 print if you order a minimum of 75, which in order for me to make profitable would have to marked up to about $21 per invitation, envelopes excluded. which makes me laugh and laugh and laugh. perhaps i'm underpricing on these because my market won't support the price i probably should be charging, but certainly they're charging a premium for a level of output that just isn't expected by most.

including my supposedly ideal customers, who i've asked about their printing expectations. what they've told me is that while they are in awe at the quality of my prints, it's just not something they're willing to pay for. it's not a priority for them. they have, in fact, often asked for printable versions that they can have printed at places i'd be appalled to use because the quality is so shoddy.

and the thing is? until i started doing all of this and learning everything i can about printing in-house, it wasn't a priority for me, either.

and yeah. i know, i'm not my own ideal customer. i came to this realization awhile ago and i'm pretty good about remembering it. but at the same time, there's something that still nags at me - something that makes me question whether anyone who doesn't have their hands on the goods each day, who isn't a printer themselves, prioritizes the kind of quality i've come to think of as a benchmark.

or, more to the point, are the people who prioritize paper and quality output and the time and expertise it takes to make paper magic happen, are they really at all interested in digital printing? are the people who have the money to spend on this kind of quality, who care deeply about it like i do, are they all really much more interested in letterpress and even screenprinted work?

and further: do i want to make it my job to educate people about the high quality stuff they can get without a letterpress printer? do i want to devote time and energy to creating my own market?

and finally: do i see myself as an artist? a printmaker? or a graphic designer? is the art i create the design (and the design only) or is it the final product?

if it's the final product, which is the model i've been operating under for awhile now without really acknowledging it, then how do i begin to create a desire for the kind of art i'm putting out there? how do i create my own market?

there are, of course, so many other things to consider, like what i can realistically accomplish within the confines of my own set of circumstances. like, from my attic studio, all 150 square feet of it, and my 17 hours a week of daycare plus all my nights and weekends. i need to be making the kind of salary that i could make if i worked a full-time job. that's what my family needs. if that's the case, do i really have the right to focus so much on the quality of the end product when the demand is not (yet, anyway) enough to sustain us? is it responsible of me to set out courting a market i don't yet know how to find or cultivate when there's a market of customers i relate to, know how to reach and inspire, and can find sustainable ways to serve?

or if i'm going to go whole-hog in the direction of artist-slash-printmaker, should i really be setting up shop with a letterpress and trying to really court the customers who are most interested in the kind of work i do? should i start providing both options - the giclee and the letterpress?

but from where? my garage, where an unused 1979 MG takes up space beside nine bikes and a human-powered lawn mower and about sixteen thousand other things? the garage i won't allow my kids in? the one that's unheated, uninsulated, offering no protection for any paper or ink, and in no way shape or form appropriate for the task?

these, my friends, these are the questions that keep me up nights i'm afraid. they're the questions that make decision-making so hard.